


I Dare You To Live

by Orange_Horizons



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Divergence, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Good Tom Riddle, Horcruxes, Slytherin Hermione Granger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:08:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25179727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orange_Horizons/pseuds/Orange_Horizons
Summary: Rather than ever entrusting his diary in the hands of a Malfoy, young Tom Riddle hid his diary under the floorboards of his loveless childhood home—Wool's Orphanage. After four decades of dormancy, the diary is given an opportunity to come to life in 1986. Finding himself in an unfamiliar world, teenaged Tom Riddle decides to adopt a girl of the orphanage—Hermione Granger.Slytherin!Hermione | Will get quite canon-divergent | This is NOT a pedophilia fic
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle
Comments: 7
Kudos: 93





	1. Prologue

Freya Somerville was twenty-three, but she may as well have been thirty. She was neither tall nor short, but she was slim—no, not attractively slim, but slim like a yellowing reed, left to dry in a desolate hinterland farm. Her thinning grey-brown hair was tied in a simple ponytail, suited for her work, but not for much else. Her cheeks were hollow—no, not hollow like the cheeks of sweet-faced actresses that send teenage boys into many a daydream—but like a corpse that the undertaker forgot to inter. She smoked too much, and ate too little. Her habitual nocturnalism had carved perpetual purple bags beneath her eyes. She wished she could sleep during the day—but she worked at an orphanage. She wished she could stop working at an orphanage, but how could she? The only source of stability in her life was her work.

These are the thoughts Freya had, as she, ugly and solitary like a shy, deformed animal, swung back and forth on the swing in the playground of Wool's Orphanage. It was two in the morning, and between her dry, coarse lips was a hastily rolled cigarette.

She used to like children, truly. She first started as an assistant carer when she was eighteen. Back then, she had a boyfriend, Lucas, but she wouldn't know for two years that he routinely cheated on her with a smarter, prettier girl from the very onset of their engagement. Back then, her dad was still alive, even if his lungs had already begun their irrevocable desiccation to death. Five years later, she became the stand-in matron of Wool's Orphanage. Ms. Braggs resigned a year ago, and as all the other assistant carers wanted to _progress_ in life, Freya volunteered to take the ship's wheel. Had she known that she would become the matron of Wool's Orphanage five years ago—tantamount to being the mother oh-so-many poor, unloved children—she would have thought it a great honour, a moral endowment. But it became nothing more than a burden, a weight that endlessly tugged at the rim of her dress and her perpetually sleepy eyes. She still felt obliged to help the orphans, yes, but _obligation_ was the only thing that spurred her to wake up every morning. She neither loved nor hated them. They were walking, talking, crying folders of paperwork. Nothing more, nothing less.

 _Self-pity means nothing_ , Freya recalled Lucas' words. Even if her ex was a worthless asshole, he still told her truths she needed to know, occasionally. _Self-pity is just self-preoccupation. It's just pride, in a different form._

Whatever. She knew there were plenty in the world who had it worse than her. No matter what she did, no matter if she applied her best efforts, some of the very orphans currently sleeping under the roof of Wool's Orphanage were doomed to become drug addicts, prostitutes, and violent criminals. They deserved the world's pity more than she did—for there was nothing short of magic that would be able to save them. She stamped out her cigarette, and retired to bed.

. . .

* * *

. . .

"Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gargary."

The detective, a brooding, serious-faced middle aged man armoured in a grey winter coat, extended his strong, vascular hand. John Gargary took it.

"You too, detective Hathaway —"

"Finlay. I insist you call me Finlay," detective Hathaway offered a smile. "Now, John — may I call you John?"

"'Course, Finlay."

"Well John, old mate," detective Hathaway began slowly, as though John, a dumb carpenter, would fail to understand him otherwise, "I want you to understand that we _do not_ suspect you. My boss doesn't suspect you, nor does my department, and nor do I — it is merely protocol that obliges me to call upon you."

"Yes, yes," John said cautiously.

"My instincts," Hathaway continued, his sharp blue eyes discerning John's discomfort, "tell me that you are completely innocent. Yet, perhaps there is something you know — some wayside bit of information that might aid my investigation. As I understand, you were _dating_ Freya Somerville for some time… weeks, no, months — months before her disappearance?"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly say _datin_ '... it was complicated — and, detective — I mean Finlay, Freya was a bit queer, you see, so not exactly datin' —"

" _Queer_ in what sense, John?"

"Ah darn it, detective, I'll jus' tell yeh everythin'," John cleared his throat. "How about that? I'll tell yeh everythin', from the beginnin'."

"Perfect — the story of Freya Somerville, I'll be glad to hear it."

"You remember that orphanage in Liverpool? The one where they'd arrested a nun 'cause a boy died an' all?"

"St. Clements', was it not?"

"That's right. Clements'," John nodded. "Well, you know how they found wot really happened an' all —"

"Mould poisoning, mildew in the wood," Hathaway clarified. "The nun was acquitted, and rightfully so."

"Yeh, an' they passed a law 'cos of that," John continued. "The Health and Safety Department made it so every orphanage was to get checked up on, have any old wood replaced an' all that. An' I'm a carpenter, detective — that's how I met Freya. She was the boss of Wool's Orphanage, an' I was 'ere to replace some really old floorboards — they were _plain_ timber, sir, no, not engineered timber — _plain_ timber. Aye. If you ask me, those old floorboards 'ave probably seen 'em bombs of the Nazi pilots, back in the day."

The detective snorted. He was human, after all.

"The old boards were easy enough to remove, but what's interestin' is wot I found _under_ one of 'em, detective," said John, who then rubbed his forehead in anticipation of what he was about to disclose. "An old black book. An' I mean real old, detective — perhaps 'cos of the dust, but it looked like somethin' from a museum. Must'a belonged to one of the orphans of old, so I gave it to Freya."

"What's so interesting about this black book then, John?"

"Well, it was blank," said John. "Right as I gave it to Freya, she thanked me, an' promptly opened to look in it — her curiosity got the better of her. Nothin' in it, not a word. 'Course, that's not why it's interestin'. 'Ere's what's interestin'. I did say Freya was a queer lass — but let me tell you, however queer Freya might be, she weren't as queer as that old book 'o hers. That's important, detective, you keep note of that, aye? Very important. What I mean to say is, the book made Freya more queer — it wasn't Freya who made the book queer."

"When we were _datin'_ , as you put it, detective, I saw wot the book did to her in real time. I'd asked her out for lunch the day after I fixed her floorboards — an' she did come, an' we had a good ol' time, we even saw a movie, _The Color Purple_ — it made her cry, you know? She'd always been a bit sad, she told me, but she was happy to be with me an' all that. And I was happy to be with her, 'course. An' it was like this for two weeks. We'd always be mighty glad to see each other. An' then, suddenly, she wasn't so glad anymore.

It wasn't the ending of a honeymoon, detective. One day she was all happy an' glad to be with me, an' the next day, it was as though she wasn't there. An' I get that, maybe somethin' happened in her family that I don't know about, maybe it's the curse of womanhood — the monthly one, I mean — but the thing is, the next day after that day, and the next day after that, and after that… she was just more an' more bizarre. It was like she was only seein' me 'cos she felt like she had to, like seein' the doctor, you know? She'd gone really quiet, and I'd become really concerned, so one day, I got angry, an' I'm not sorry that I got angry, detective, even if it were unreasonable, cause if I weren't angry, I'd not have known, an' so I asked her straight, when we were havin' lunch at the orphanage — what are yeh hidin' from me?

And would ya guess what? She shouted at me, an' told me to leave. Didn't think she had it in her to be so angry. I went home, but got really concerned once more, an' decided ter go back. An orphan girl opened the door for me. Sweet little thing, Hermione, her name is — an' she knew I was Freya's friend, 'cos I'd come before. Anyway, I went to Freya's office, an' I heard the noise of writin' — I mean that of a pen against paper. I didn't knock, detective, my curiosity got the better a' me. Instead, I squatted down, an' looked through the peephole, an' saw madness.

You'd think she was a crazy mum lookin' down at her dead baby, thinkin' it was still alive, though in her heart of hearts she knew it was dead. But there weren't any baby, alive or dead, only the goddamned old black book. She was writin' into it, full well pouring her heart out with madness in her eyes, like Keats or Elton John. An' here's where I make a blunder, detective — I knocked the door, an' when she answered me, I demanded she tell me what in the hell was goin' on! I insulted the cursed book specifically. But my anger was nothin' compared with the anger she hit me back with.

She went completely mental, detective. Said the book understood her in a way that I never did and never could, said the book cared about her and said no one else did, and said I was evil for tryin' to take the book away from her. Now, detective, I hope y'won't judge me poorly for what I did next, but put yerself in my shoes, an' think, what would you have done? Mind, I almost loved this woman — to see her driven mad by a bloody _book_ out of all things would not do. I ran at her and tried to wrest the book out o' her hands, but she screamed, then ran past me, an' down the stairs, an' when I tried ter chase her, she was nowhere to be found. She left with the bloody book. An' that's that. Haven't seen her since — an' neither has anyone, I suppose."

"Very well, John," Hathaway said, as though he were a teacher congratulation a fifth grader's particularly insightful answer to a difficult question. "Save for one detail — the little girl who opened the door the last time you visited Freya — Hailey?"

"Hermione," John corrected.

"Hermione — you said she opened the door for you?"

"That she did."

"But we've consulted the staff of the orphanage, or what remains of them," Hathaway seriously intoned, "and discovered that all doors are double-locked, per protocol, meaning that you cannot open any of them without a key from _either_ side, least of all late at night — and it was late at night when you last visited Freya, was it not, John?"

"Indeed it was, detective," John scratched his head. "S'pose someone must've left the door unlocked, then."

"I have reason to doubt that the staff of an _orphanage_ would be so careless as to leave their doors unlocked at night," Hathaway declared. "Are you certain Freya didn't come downstairs to attend to you herself?"

"No, I'm sure Hermione opened the door for me," said John, insulted. "Either little Hermione picked the door with _magic_ , or Freya, mental an' careless as she was at the time, left if unlocked. Pretty obvious if you ask me, detective."

"Very well then, John," said Hathaway, unconvinced. "Thank you for your time — I may call you sometime this week to go over what you've just shared with me."

"All good, detective. See you, then."

Hathaway stood and departed, and as he did, John beheld the table behind him, which possessed a solitary occupant, a most striking teenage boy. He was quite tall, and exceedingly pale—it was as though his skin refused to acknowledge the existence of the sun. His face was handsome enough to instil envy in most men and desire in every woman; the hair on his head and his eyebrows were thick, and his eyes were deep-set—and all these features, hair, eyebrows, and eyes, were all jet-black and intense, like coals in a fire pit. Most startlingly, coupled with John's previous observations, was that he looked very _young_. Indeed, he was a mere teenager, no older than eighteen. Yet, as he sat as upright as a statue, his perfectly ironed double-breasted suit—which looked like something John's grandpa would have worn to a funeral, thirty years ago—gleamed under the sun. The coffee on his table was untouched, but no steam blew from it—it had gone cold. John felt his stomach turn; he was beholding a man out of place, out of time, yet completely confident and determined in his bearing. He supposed he must have been an actor, in his costume.

. . .

* * *

. . .

Hermione laid in her bed, tightly clutching Bernard, her one-eyed teddy bear.

_My bed is like a little boat;_

_Nurse helps me in when I embark;_

_She girds me in my sailor's coat_

_And starts me in the dark._

_At night, I go on board and say_

_Good-night to all my friends on shore;_

_I shut my eyes and sail away_

_And see and hear no more._

She idly hummed as she imagined herself a sailor, in a big blue coat, waving goodbye at Bernard as he, now as tall as a man and dressed in a splendid white suit, waved back from the shore. She imagined the waves crashing against her ship, and the grey fins of dolphins and the blue fins of sharks jutting from the blue skin of the sea. She imagined her crewmates; Ms. Somerville to steer the wheel, John Gargary to manage the deck; herself to cook the meals. Then, she thought about Ms. Somerville, who had taught her this very poem. The other carers said she had gone on a holiday, but Hermione wasn't stupid; she'd not only heard the rumours, but read the newspapers as well—Ms. Somerville was _missing_.

 _And people_ , Hermione thought, _don't go missing for no reason_. Someone very bad had done something to Ms. Somerville. At first, the idea made Hermione scared. Gooseflesh enveloped her skin, and she turned wide awake, blinking rapidly at the blank black of the ceiling. Then, she became very sad. Ms. Somerville didn't deserve to get hurt—what kind of person, or monster, would hurt the unhurried, sleepy nurse of a dozen parentless children?

Suddenly, a loud noise—footsteps! Powerful, grown-up footsteps! In her dorm! Hermione jolted up in her bed. She beheld an apparition from the world of nightmares; before her, stood a _shadow_ —but it wasn't the shadow of a man, but rather a man _made_ of the substance of a shadow. And he was standing! Hermione tried to scream, but the shadow, with a careless swoop of his arm, somehow caused _every_ lamp and light in the dorm to turn on. Hermione winced at the onslaught of brightness.

Standing before Hermione's bed was a teenage boy. He wore a black suit and, in one hand, held a perfectly straight, beautifully designed... _stick?_ His skin was as pale as the moon, and his severe face was proportioned very nicely; with a few black curls drooping over his right eye but not quite blocking it, he looked like someone brought to life out of an old painting. Nonetheless, Hermione was very scared, and recoiled to the back of her bed, wrapping her arms around her knees to defend herself in a little ball.

"Hermione," the boy said gently. "There's no need to be afraid."

 _How you know my name?_ The walking-shadow-become-boy-from-a-painting came closer to Hermione. She buried her face in her arms so she wouldn't see him—but suddenly, his long, strong finger came under her chin, and slowly beckoned her to raise her face.

He sat on her bed, and began to speak, in an eerily calm voice, as though nothing extraordinary had just happened.

"My name is Tom. When I was a child, I, too, was a prisoner of this miserable place. I see you're still afraid of me. Good, good girl — but while fear may be more prudent than rashness, it can also strangle the shoots of action. There is no need to fear me."

"It is them you ought to fear," Tom swept his arm across the room, gesturing at all the other sleeping girls, and Hermione suddenly realised it was very strange that they remained asleep, when all the lights of the room were on, and Tom was chattering on so loudly. "For you and I, Hermione — we are of one nature, a superior nature — and they, they are utterly inferior to us, in the way that reeds are lesser than flowers."

Now, Hermione was as puzzled as she was fearful; what did she have in common with this tall boy out of a painting, that she didn't with fellow orphan girls?

"You make things happen, Hermione," Tom said assuredly, as though he read her mind. "Special things. Things that other girls can't even imagine doing, can you not?"

Slowly, Hermione nodded her little head. There was much that she could do, that none of the other girls could—and she had to hide her ability to make _things_ happen, or else she would scare everyone else. She was a living, walking secret. Strangely, and perhaps stupidly, she her heart warmed to the strange boy—he was the first person to who she had confessed her strange quality.

"We are one and the same, Hermione," Tom continued. "It is _magic_ that flows through our veins. Picture a flowing river beneath the radiant sun, on a fair spring day. The river is our blood, and the gleaming, sun-touched surface of the water, our magic. Those without magic, that is to say, _everyone_ else in this miserable place, and the vast majority of the dreary, crawling creatures we call _people_ on the face of this blue Earth, live low, miserable lives, in the lightless cavern of the mundane."

"It is an unspeakable crime, that the brightest of our kind — you, Hermione, and myself, when I was your age — are forced to dwell among _cattle_ ," said Tom, cold and menacing. There was genuine anger on his face, and he made no effort to hide it. "Enough talk — I will give you a taste of _real_ magic."

Tom stood back up, and, flicking the stick in his hand, as though to strike an invisible doorbell, magically yanked Bernard from Hermione's grasp, to suspend him midair. With another stroke of his stick, Bernard's right eye produced _another_ eye from itself, like a marble producing another marble out of itself, and attached itself into the empty socket of his left eye.

Now, for the first time since Hermione was four, Bernard had two eyes again. Tom healed him, like Jesus healing the blind man. But that wasn't all.

Tom then twisted his stick in a complex motion, and a faintly glowing green-gold-blue mist shot from the tip of his stick, squarely into Bernard's brown chest. When Bernard fell back into Hermione's arms, he turned _alive._ His body felt much softer, _furrier_ —and he reeled in his arms and legs like a baby in its mother's embrace. He rubbed his small, teddy head against Hermione's chest. Somehow, it wasn't that strange—she had always known that Bernard was alive. Now, she had proof.

Incredulous, Hermione looked at Tom, and then back at Bernard, and then back at Tom once more.

"He's — he's alive!" Hermione sputtered, "thank you! Thank you!"

"That is the least that magic can do," Tom dipped his head. "Come with me, and I shall show you the glory of your birthright. I will teach you everything that has been denied to you."

Tom extended his hand. His fingers, though long, veiny and ghostly pale, appeared as inviting to Hermione as a glowing campfire would to a lost, shivering wayfarer. Thus, with nothing but Bernard the cuddly bear and her grey pyjamas, Hermione followed Tom into the dark of the night, eager to embark to her new home.


	2. Second Spring

The coldness of the air was in his bones. But as detective Finlay Hathaway stood at the door of Billy Stubbs' townhouse, he saw that no one else in Mayfair trembled like he did, with clattering teeth and arms wrapped around shoulders. It wasn't winter yet, after all, only autumn, where leaves still mingled green with orange, and women still dressed in colours evocative more of warmth than of coldness. No, it was simply that Finlay hadn't eaten in two days, nor slept during their nights. The body, animalistic as it is, requires nourishment to maintain its internal heat. Corpses are cold because they are no longer able to thermoregulate, a numbingly obvious fact that finds itself repeated again and again in Finlay's internal monologue. But even so, both his desires to eat and to sleep were eclipsed by invigorating, all-consuming obsession. His blue eyes glinted with the sharpness not of wakefulness, but of mania. He stood upright not because his body was energised within, but because his perplexity at the insolubility of his case filled him with a sort of dreadful wonder.

 _Return to reality, Finlay._ Reorient. He was in a wealthy, snug, crowded street in Mayfair, in London's West End. He was safe here, there was no need for fear. Any paranoia would be utterly baseless, and it would not do to uselessly expend his energy cowering from spectres and phantoms. He stood in broad daylight, after all. He was before an inviting townhouse. Billy Stubbs' townhouse. He knocked on the door with three enthusiastic raps.

Billy Stubbs was a short, lean middle-aged man. He wore a flat cap, a grey sweater, and a gregarious smile that reflected a life well-lived and unburdened by regret. He was a national park ranger of thirty years, an enviable vocation. No one would have guessed that he was ever an orphan of London's East End.

"Good day, Mr Stubbs, how do you do?"

"Jolly good, sir," Stubbs beamed, "and who are you?"

"Officer Finlay Hathaway of the MPD's Criminal Investigation Department. May I have a word?"

"What's the charge, detective?" Stubbs teased.

"No charge, Stubbs," Finlay lowered his head. "I'll speak plainly — I am at an impasse in my current investigation. I have come to discuss something with you that might _just_ break this impasse — your days at Wool's Orphanage."

At once, Stubbs' tranquil smile evaporated into a frown, but he nonetheless complied with Finlay's request with nothing but withdrawn politeness.

"Well, come on in then, detective," Stubbs gestured. "Make yourself at home."

 _A homely interior_ , Finlay mused, _a rare sight in my line of work_. Plaster walls, old kerosene lamps standing on carved wooden shelves. Photos suggesting a cordial domestic sphere; a contented wife, two healthy, flushed boys, _four_ bloody dogs. Two terriers and two collies. Useful furniture and decorative clutter intermixed like leaves in their briars. The dining table blanketed with newspapers, atop which stood an ashtray, a pot of cold coffee, and a withering pot-plant. Finlay took a seat.

"Could I get you anything? Tea, coffee? Coca-cola if you so fancy."

"Tea will do, thank you."

Comfortably settling in Stubbs' dining room, where a full view of his messy, efficient but still presentable kitchen was offered, Finlay was given a hot mug of Maghrebi mint tea, garnished with a freshly picked mint leaf from Stubbs' garden-shelf.

"So, detective, what is it of my _childhood home_ you want to know of?"

"Funny business, Mr. Stubbs," Finlay rubbed his eyes. "Any funny business that you can recall."

"How do you mean _funny business_?" Stubbs asked, a strange defensive edge to his tone.

For the umpteenth time in the week, John Gargary's wide, plain face materialised in Finlay's mind. His cockney accent commenced its recitations. _An old black book… real old, detective… somethin' from a museum._ Finlay was intrusively reminded of a bible. _The book made Freya queer… it wasn't Freya who made the book queer. There weren't any baby, alive or dead… only the goddamned old black book._

_That's important, detective, you keep note of that, aye?_

"Goddamned carpenter," Finlay murmured under his breath.

"Pardon?"

"Anything strange, unusual," Finlay blurted out. "Anything that you found inexplicable as a child. Yes, Mr. Stubbs, I am a detective, but I've come grasping for straws. That's how dire this case is — so tell me everything that you saw as a kid, anything remotely odd, anything remotely _off_."

Grave concern came upon Stubbs' face. It contorted further into horrified exasperation—and Finlay realised that he was grinning at Stubbs like a wolf at their prey—because he knew that Stubbs had something to say.

"If I'm to tell you anything, detective —" Stubbs said in a low tone, "— you'll have to give me more details."

Finlay's first impulse was to chide Stubbs, a goddamned park ranger, for seeking to barter information with a detective of the metropolitan police. But he was Finlay's only recourse, and an absurd one at that, for in the past week Finlay had consulted the orphans of Wool's who'd grown up in the 70s, 60s, and 50s—and found nothing pertaining to John Gargary's bloody black book.

"Around half a year ago, the matron of your old orphanage disappeared. Perhaps you've already heard, Mr. Stubbs, although I doubt you did, as it didn't exactly make the rounds on the telly nor the papers. All our suspects have been cleared, by which I mean they have incontrovertible alibis, and the sole open lead is a bizarre tale recounted to me by the matron's ex-boyfriend. In the weeks leading to her disappearance, she grew obsessed with a book. It was the diary of an orphan of old. Her boyfriend, who she met on the same day she got the book, was sent to the orphanage to replace its floorboards… yes, he was a carpenter, and in his carpentry, he found the diary and gave it to her. She would confide in this diary — which, for whatever reason, was empty, more often than she confided in him — her boyfriend, I mean — and he likened her preoccupation with it to the fixation a mother would have for their newborn child. As a matter of fact, her boyfriend was the last person to see her, and at this last sighting she was, unsurprisingly, with the book."

Like a broken piece of clockwork, Stubbs's hand furiously hit his own forehead, clenching tightly, his knuckles going white and his terrified expression once again betraying to Finlay that he had something to say.

"Detective…" Stubbs began, his eyes intent not at Finlay, but at his mug of tea, "I may know something of this book — but before I tell you a thing, you must promise me that you won't tell you a soul what I tell you. No one, not even in the official documents, yes?"

"Of course," Finlay assured, excitement thick in his voice. "Confidentiality is necessary to my line of work."

"That diary belongs to Tom Riddle," Stubbs intoned, gravely.

" _Tom Riddle,_ " Finlay repeated.

"Yes, his name is funny, detective," Stubbs continued, his voice and aspect severe. "But I'm certain that diary belongs to him. Every summer, when he returned to us, he would spend entire days holed up in his room, doing God knows what —"

"But the diary was empty —"

"I know, detective," said Stubbs. "I know. But what you must know about the diary is that Riddle began to write in it only _after_ he was sent away to the boarding school."

"This Tom fellow went to a boarding school?"

"Yes, one in Scotland," Stubbs continued. "We never caught the name, detective, but I'll tell you this — the whole affair was beyond weird. You see, when we were children, Riddle was the devil incarnate. There was not a single one of us who didn't fear him, not a single one of us who hadn't gotten hurt by him in some way. And by hurt, I don't mean he kicked or punched us, or swore at us — no. You were asking about _funny business_ , detective. Well, I can tell you that Riddle was a funny boy, a very funny boy. If anyone wrangled with him on Saturday, woe to them on Sunday. Maybe you'll be walking down the stairs, and you'll trip and fall. Break a few bones. Maybe you'll choke on our breakfast porridge. Maybe you'll find a dead pigeon in your bedsheets. Maybe you'll find your beloved rabbit _dead!_ "

Stubbs hammered his fist down on the dining table. Finlay was taken aback. Rather than apologising for his brashness, Stubbs continued his tirade:

"Animals, detective Hathaway, are without sin. Animals aren't good, I know — a Caspian tiger won't hesitate to bite your legs off — but they are pure all the same. They never rebelled against God! They are just like small children, and they can only be cruel in the way that small children can be cruel — from ignorance! We know good from evil because we know evil, and Tom Riddle, detective, was the devil incarnate. He used, abused, and _killed_ animals for nothing but his own pride! I hope he burns in hell! Fuck him!"

"Mr. Stubbs, no wonder you have four dogs," Finlay remarked, at a loss for words.

"But this was before he went to that school of his," Stubbs continued, regaining his original composure. "It was on a rainy summer's day in 1938 that everything changed. I remember it as clearly as I remember yesterday. A man came to the orphanage, a really bloody weird man. He looked like a lion — no, he was not ferocious — but because he had a head of long, red hair, and a long, red beard to match. He wore a bloody _purple_ suit, too. He talked to Ms. Cole, our matron at the time, blessed be her memory, and then Riddle. But bless him, for he was Santa Claus for us, because the next day, Riddle came to each of us, one by one, _returning_ the things he'd stolen from us — and since that day, Riddle never so much touched a hair on any of us. We'd only see him during summer, and in summer, he'd only write in that bloody black book — which is probably possessed by the devil, detective, be careful — it probably killed the matron who you think disappeared."

"I hope you're wrong, Mr. Stubbs," Finlay rubbed his forehead, deliberating whether to regard Stubbs' incredulous account as the superstitious ramblings of an, albeit grown-up, still traumatised orphan, or the harrowing basis of what could be a new lead not only in his investigation but in forensic science altogether. "And what did Tom Riddle do, after he graduated?"

"He disappeared," Stubbs said. "In the summer after his graduation, he left the orphanage only a day after he returned. Do you reckon he's come back then, detective?"

"I certainly hope not, Mr. Stubbs," Finlay murmured. "He sounds like a difficult man to bring to a courtroom."

. . .

* * *

. . .

Igor Karkaroff sat contentedly by his lake, enjoying the weight of the bamboo fly rod in his hands, and the cold, damp air of the misty forest that shrouded him from all sides. He was four miles into the Durmstrang woods, far from all the noise of his campus. Smoke blew at his face from his wand-lit campfire, which put him at ease, for the scent of flames was among Igor Karkaroff's favourite fragrances. He had an intimate history with it.

A dull weight tugged at his rod. He could never tell another wizard that he found a pastime in muggle fishing, because they would not understand. Magical fishing, which entailed wands, enchanted rods, and enchanted bait, was all too easy and thus a highly dull activity. Contrarily, Muggle fishing, which required patience, and lended meditation to the fisherman, was a real sport. One had to wait for their prey to come to them, and strike when the time was right. It was more rewarding that way. It was like war; sometimes, you let your enemy come to you—only for you to subdue them in familiar terrain.

The weight on his fishing rod grew and grew. A crooked smile bloomed on his old face. No, it was too heavy to be a carp or a pike—it had to be a catfish, and perhaps one with gigantism at that, for it was as heavy as a man. He would have the elves fillet it and smoke it over basil and alderwood.

He reeled in his rod, muscles tensing at the increasing heaviness of his catch. A haul to be remembered for sure, perhaps his biggest yet!

But the lifeform that rose out of the water wasn't a big, juicy, squirming catfish; instead, it was something that broke Igor's placid face into a grimace of utter terror. Half-man, half-dementor, it was a humanoid wreath completely shrouded in misty black silk, and arising, it extended its arms in perfect perpendicularity with its body, like the muggle God Jesus on the crucifix. Reflexively, Igor threw his rod to his ground, stood up, and raised his arm wand ready to defend himself.

The wraith revealed its face. A terribly handsome, pale boy, with a mocking grin and a ferocious glint in his gypsy-black eyes—a hint of familiarity in them—no, it cannot be—!

A sudden complete numbness was followed by an equally sudden, absolutising pain, as though a giant punched him in the face. Igor Karkaroff fell faint to the floor.

. . .

* * *

. . .

 _A year has passed since Tom made me his little sister_ , Hermione mused, as she levitated a glass watering can over some sunny yellow asphodels. She was six when she left Wool's Orphanage. Now, she was seven. Back then, she only had a vague inkling of magic; now, she was a witch proper, although she had yet to receive her wand. Tom wanted her to first 'live and breathe magic' before she got her wand. And live and breathe magic she did.

Whitevine Meadow was the name given to the two-story lodge in which Tom and Hermione made their home. It was an old muggle place, dating back to the twelfth century, and possessed amongst its proprietors Barons and Earls, revolutionaries and poets, renowned classical scholars and eccentric, reclusive heirs—and of late, a seventeen year old wizard (although the question of Tom's age was a most unclear one) and his seven year old adoptive sister. It was refurbished many times throughout its history, and its last renovation, in the nineteenth century, endowed it with a charming, gabled blue roof, and French glass windows.

Situated in its namesake the Whitevine Meadow of Somerset, it was only thirty miles from England's southern coast, and a few minutes' walk from the northward town of Yeovil. The 'Meadow' was really a forest, and there was never another human to be seen in it, for Tom had enchanted the trees at its very boundaries to ensure that no muggle would trespass. It was for Hermione's protection, and the protection of her plants, her teddy bear, and her snakes. Muggles wouldn't understand them, and muggles always destroy that which they don't understand.

Indeed, there were many occupants of Whitevine Meadow. First and foremost among them was, of course, Tom, who was also frequently absent. Since they moved in, he had lived with Hermione for three months, and then disappeared for four, and then lived with her another two months, and was now gone for another two, and counting. It was a blessing and a curse. When Tom was around, he would ensure that Hermione would be busy every hour of the day, practising magic of one variety of another.

"During my Hogwarts years, I resented my pureblood peers for their laziness, their weakness. They did not realise the wealth of their heritage, and in their arrogance, they squandered everything to mediocrity. They grew up with their magic nurtured; I, with mine repressed, stunted, shunned. So I greatly excelled them all, Hermione, just as you shall greatly excel their successors in my image. Even without the charge of a magical guardian, I prevailed. Thus you who are already gifted in nature, shall blossom into the most powerful and dangerous witch you can be, guided by my knowing hand."

He was as harsh a master as rewarding. If Hermione failed to understand an idea, or cast a spell meekly and weakly, she wasn't punished—no, rather, the consequences of failure were made clear. If she failed to control the mind of a garden bird, she would have to kill it—for "if you have no control over someone or something, it is your enemy". If she failed to nurture her mandrake so that it would sprout wholesome roots, she would have to boil it alive, and heed its useless wailing. If, in her duels against Tom, she failed to cast a spell properly, he would trip her over, or transfigure her into a rabbit to dangle upside-down in the air.

When she proved successful, she was rewarded. Not with compliments, for it there was no concept of praising others in Tom's mind, but with _acknowledgment_. Once Tom knew that Hermione was capable of a certain article of magic, he would introduce her to something new and more complicated, and when he did this, Hermione knew that he was pleased with her.

At night, sometimes Tom would bring her to a clearing in the forest with a blanket and a picnic basket, where she would eat and drink merrily while lying down, her small head on his firm chest, as he pointed out the constellations and the metaphysical significance of them to her.

Whenever Tom left, he would do so suddenly. There were no goodbyes, no promises of a duration within which he would return. Everything would be normal one day, and Tom would be gone the next. During the first two weeks of his absences, Hermione would cry so much that she was sure her heart would cleave into two—she couldn't help but shake the unreasonable feeling that Tom left because he wanted to get away from _her_. That was when Elfie, their house elf, would comfort her.

"Master Tom doesn't want you to be sad, Mistress Hermione! Elfie knows Master Tom is going away only because he has to! He doesn't want to leave Mistress Hermione! He misses Mistress Hermione like how Mistress Hermione misses him!"

Elfie, who Hermione had named—Tom instructed her to name him, for "when you grant a living thing a sign, a name, you gain power over it"—was Hermione's only other speech-endowed companion during Tom's months of absence.

Then, she had Puppet, the clockwork gnome which Tom and her had built together with many delicate arithmantic enchantments. Puppet, who looked like a wooden garden gnome, but moved like a nimble little monkey, helped Hermione upkeep Whitevine Meadow's expansive garden, which possessed apple, orange, fig, and clementine trees; fluxweed shrubs, pots of snargaluff, and patches of wormwood; a pond containing water lilies, philodendrons, and various colour-changing magical fishes; and finally, of course, a herb garden that sported everything from mint to basil to dill.

Of course, there was Bernard, her living teddy-bear and oldest friend. Using magic, she sowed him a variety of outfits from the leaves and flower petals which she collected in her expeditions within the Meadow.

Finally, there were the great host of snakes that guarded and slithered about Whitevine Meadow. Their leader was Saturninius, a large, venomous yellow-green viper that Tom had procured, and their ranks were filled with smaller black adders, the sort which were commonly found in the meadow's forest. Although she couldn't speak to them like Tom could, they submitted to her will, because they submitted to Saturninius, whose mind Tom had taught her to control.

It was this motley crew, headed by a seven year old girl and ranked with elf, wooden gnome, teddy bear, and a dozen snakes and songbirds, that ruled Whitevine Meadow. Today, Hermione was to go on another expedition into the forest, seeking flowers which she would flatten in her notebook, and identify them with both their common and scientific names. She had already taxonomised the sorts of leaves to be found, as well as the variety of honeysuckles, dog roses, kingcups, and cornflowers, but she knew there was more to find, more to understand.

. . .

* * *

. . .

Sharp ice-cold water roused him from his nightmare-poisoned slumber.

Igor Karkaroff shouted and flailed his arms and legs about, finding himself naked, cuffed by metal chains at his ankles, wrists, and neck. Facing him was the tall, vampiristically handsome pale boy who was the wraith of his fishing misadventure, now dressed in a white silk shirt and plain black trousers. He was in a dungeon of some sort, and he was pinned against a cold stone wall.

The boy sat on a strangely vivid red couch, and next to him sat a _skeleton_.

"Hello, Igor," the boy said melodiously. _English._

No—it couldn't be—

"Indeed, it is I," the boy remarked with a proud glint in his eye. " _Lord_ _Voldemort_ , your master."

He pronounced _Voldemort_ in a strange manner, as though he was somehow unfamiliar and unacquainted with it. Igor refused to believe that this clean-shaven, haughty boy was his former master. His mind desperately groped for understanding; while it wasn't terribly difficult for one to acquire the appearance of their youth through magic, he knew his old master was far from vain—the Dark Lord revelled in the terror his appearance engendered.

"I have been acquainted with your crimes," he began softly, before his high voice suddenly turned sharp, "and I am disgusted by how utterly wanting you are in both conviction and prudence! He who betrays Lord Voldemort has neither faith nor sense."

"H-how?" Igor sputtered. "If you are The D-Dark Lord… why do you take the form of a little boy?"

" _A little boy_?" The boy tilted his head, cold, raw rage glaring from his black eyes, " _CRUCIO!_ "

Igor was thrown into the worst agony he had ever known, although he known it before. He was burning alive, while the marrow of his bones froze into hot ice. Even though a small, rational worm at the back of his mind knew his sudden despair was epiphenomenal to the curse, he was certain, in his gut and heart, that he would go blind, lose his hearing, and die at any moment—until it all stopped. Sudden tranquility and lingering sharpness mixed like two liquors that ought to remain unmixed. He looked at his arms, and then down at his torso; it was miraculous to him that his body remained intact. He looked incredulously at the boy, who perhaps truly was Voldemort—no child would be able to cast so potent a Cruciatus curse.

"God sees all, Voldemort sees all," the boy continued, "and I am as eternal as God. You thought that I was gone, and betrayed the most faithful of my acolytes to the squirming, soulless worms that run the so-called Ministry of Magic. You thought the limitations of your magic were the limitations of Lord Voldemort's magic. Fool! A miscalculation to end all other miscalculations. You thought that you could protect yourself from the wrath of the Ministry by defying me, but now, you can't protect yourself from me by defying the Ministry."

"My-my lord! I beg forgiveness, I will do a-anything, _anything_ —"

"I am not your Lord. I am a fragment of your Lord, a mere representation of him, a postcard of the mountain of his being. There will be no mercy for you. Accept the honour of suffering defeat at so sublime a pair of hands and so ingenious a mind. I am a keepsake of Lord Voldemort that has come to life. I am him when he was sixteen. Yet I am not. There remains the detritus of a muggle's soul in my heart. Coarse, muggle debris, grey concrete reduced to black rubble. Her name is Freya — tasteful name for a muggle, indeed — and her memories invade my dreams. Who am I? Am I 'I'? My conviction wanes by the day, yet strengthens by the night. I am a contingent subject, a wayward to my true object. Where is my master soul?"

Igor's despair settled. He knew he was not leaving the dungeon alive, not because he was certain that his Lord had returned to punish him, but because the nonsense-spewing boy before him, whoever he was, was completely insane, and driven by adolescent rage.

"When I first came back to life, I knew with crystalline clarity the obligation I had to my Self. I was inspired by my own mission, and I was singular in the pursuit of my reunification. But I cannot find my master soul, and thus became the heresiarch against the church of my ego — I do not know whether to dub my master soul 'master' any longer. What say you, Karkaroff?" The boy's eagerly looked at him for a moment, before continuing his soliloquy:

"I have extensively studied myself. I have begun to think that perhaps I, Tom the fragment, qualify for humanity just as much as Voldemort the Dark Lord. I was unsurprised to find that I have no children, at least not officially. I dislike children, their stupid whims and their ugly wails. Yet, what is Lord Voldemort if not arcane and clandestine? Tell me, did I bear any children?"

"I-I do not believe so, my lord…"

"Yet it is for a child that I have gone to these efforts to maintain myself," the boy continued, contemplatively. "I have always believed that, if I were to become a parent, my child would exceed all other children. That ought to go without saying. It is for a little girl, who I have come to feel a peculiar affection for, that I am covering my tracks — otherwise, I would not care if the world knew of my return."

"Murder is a blunt instrument. Killing one man obliges you to kill two more... there is no efficacy in this method when you must operate in secrecy. I must erase memories while not erasing men — but the spell for this, as you, renowned headmaster of Durmstrang, are certainly well aware of, is very tricky to master. And so I must practice, and who better to practice on, than the renowned, cowardly headmaster of Durmstrang, who thought he could outwit I, Lord Voldemort, who transcends life and death, and space and time?"

"My lord… I can be a great asset to you — I know many in Europe who —"

"Silence! You are _already_ a great asset to me. Know this: you shall live the rest of your days suspended in confused horror, as I withdraw every last one of your cherished memories, and all of your loves, to replace them with terrors inconceivable even to the chimeras of your worst nightmares. You will be unable to distinguish between sleep and sobriety. When you beg for death, I shall not grant you the mercy of it — only when you become mute and dumb, with conception of neither life and death in your molten, electrified mind, will I point my wand at your chest and chant the noble _Avada Kedavra_. For now, this shall suffice — _obliviate!_ "


End file.
